In Iraq, Abductors Create New Negotiators

May 07, 2005|By SOLOMON MOORE Los Angeles Times

BAGHDAD, IRAQ — Families of kidnapping victims are forced to bargain to get their relatives back safely.

Before his father was kidnapped and held for six days last month in a windowless storeroom somewhere in this labyrinthine capital, the toughest negotiation Robert Farho had ever handled was over a $3,200 Daewoo sedan.

So when a stranger called Farho and demanded $500,000 for his father's life, the 26-year-old used-car dealer was understandably overwhelmed. But true to his profession, he started negotiating.

"I told him ... give me back my father's car and I will sell it and give you the money," Farho said.

The captor laughed, he said, and replied, "I tell you what: You arrange the $500,000, and I'll give you the car back."

Farho's experience, which he and his family detailed in an extensive interview days after his father's release, is emblematic of the lack of security in Iraq today. Kidnappings have become commonplace as insurgents and apolitical criminals use hostage-taking to raise money.

In recent days, kidnappers have released videotapes of American contractor Jeffrey Ake, who was captured earlier this month, and of three Romanian journalists and their translator. Such high-profile victims have institutions to negotiate on their behalf and, at times, to pay large ransoms.

But the majority of kidnapping victims are people like Farho's father. Kidnappers rarely bother to issue videotapes of such people. Their plight is one of quiet anguish and helplessness. They can rarely call on the help of professional negotiators or powerful institutions.

Usually their families conduct the negotiations with the abductors over cell phones or through intermediaries such as Muslim clerics. The Iraqi police rarely provide much assistance; many families don't even contact the authorities. They scrape together the ransom by selling off their most prized possessions -- their cars, even their homes -- and taking out loans.

Sometimes the negotiations are successful and their loved ones are returned, traumatized but alive. Other times, families are lucky to find a body to bury.

Religious and ethnic minorities such as Farho's family, which is Christian, are particularly vulnerable. They don't belong to a tribe that will avenge them or deter kidnappers. But the high volume and diversity of kidnapping victims in Iraq make it clear that anyone is a possible target.

The story of Farho's father, Audish Farho Audish, is a testament to the quiet resolve of many Iraqis in the face of these crimes.

"I leave home every day at 8:30 to work in Kadhimiya or Karada," said Audish, who manages two goldsmith shops in those Baghdad neighborhoods. "I was driving on Palestine Street when a car came beside me. The driver pointed and said that I have gasoline spilling from my car and it was on fire. So, of course, I stopped to look underneath."

As he bent over, he was hit in the head. Men grabbed him, stuffed a rubber ball in his mouth and jerked a hood over his head.

After a 35-minute drive, the men hustled Audish into a building and bound his hands and feet with plastic handcuffs. They took off his watch, emptied his pockets and pulled off his wedding band, but they left the hood on. Audish heard voices of three or four people. They wanted to know whom they should call for negotiations. Eventually, they called Robert Farho.

"I told them I couldn't arrange that much money," Farho said. "I started cursing them."

It was a tactic he had employed many times as a car dealer: pretend you don't want what you desperately need. He still doesn't know if that was what ultimately helped.

Audish said his captors beat him for his son's insolence. From time to time, they would suspend him from a ceiling fan until his hands were numb or would give him electric shocks.

Some of the kidnappers told Audish that they had worked for Saddam Hussein's private guard. Others said they had been imprisoned by the former Baathist regime. They had all been working as professional kidnappers since the invasion, they told him.

Audish learned that they had been casing him for some time. "They knew where I worked, they knew my house, they knew everything," he said.

The kidnappers said they were acquainted with his family: They had kidnapped Audish's niece last year. The family paid $15,000 for her release. She has since fled with her family to Syria.

There was one important fact, however, that the kidnappers had gotten wrong about Audish: They believed that he was the owner of the goldsmith shops, rather than just a longtime employee, and could afford to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in ransom.

Although the kidnappers had his father's cell phone, Farho refused to call them -- despite the pleas of his mother, Dalila Audish.

"I didn't want them to know how scared we were," he said. It was another negotiating tactic he had learned in business: The one who calls first will be weaker in the final deal.